The Greens in Finland

The Greens work for a fair change, and today the worldwide green movement is needed more than ever.

The Greens work for a fair change, and today the worldwide green movement is needed more than ever. Climate change is threatening the future of our environment and of our way of life. People's well-being is threatened by changes in working life caused by the global economy.

The green movement is offering a fair and safe solution. We want the world to be in a better state for the future generations. You can read more about our values and principles from the Greens' Statement of principles.

The Greens of Finland exist to safeguard the future. We want to save the environment: biodiversity, the beauty of nature, the cleanness of air and water. We want to save people: to put an end to misery, to achieve equality, to give everyone the freedom to lead a life in which they are true to themselves. We want to save politics: to let people make decisions themselves, to end corruption, to enable a wide variety of opinions to be heard.

Background

The party was formed on February 28th in 1987 and registered as a political party the year after. Nevertheless, the political movement had begun already in the early 1980s when environmental activists, feminists and other active groups started campaigning on green issues in Finland. The party was founded on a citizen movement. Still today, the party stresses openness and democratic decision-making.

In 1995, the Greens in Finland was the first European Green party to be part of a state-level Cabinet.

The first two parliamentary representatives were elected even before the party was registered, in the elections of 1983. These were the first independent representatives at the Parliament of Finland. In 1987 the number of seats rose to four, and in 1991 to ten. Now, the Greens have 15 members at the parliament.

At the local level, Greens have an important position especially in the largest cities of Finland. In the local election of 2017, the Greens had 12,5% of the vote and became the largest party in Jyväskylä and Nokia. In the capital Helsinki, the Greens maintained its position as the 2nd largest party with 24.1% of the vote.